Mary Hill and Barbara Bever

Untitled
By Mary Hill
Painted in response to Barbara Bever’s story (below) as inspiration

Pen and Muse
By Barbara Bever

The blue blood of my pen is splattered across the page like a Jackson Pollock painting. Words written, then soon un-chosen, forming a work of art on my pale yellow tablet. The haphazard angry blots and the determined double-lined deletions are companions to the slithering blue snake across the last paragraph.

I start and stall, start and stall. I write about the prostitute I once interviewed at a truck stop in southern India. She was sending school money home to her children. The pen’s thin ink races across the opening line. I begin again with the story of a young orphan in Madras diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. She told me she wants to be a doctor when she grows up. The snake then stretches its body across that sentence, too. More inked spilled and no further along in my task. I begin to paint the scene of the widow in west India who started a home sewing business with a loan from her neighbors. Is she really so different than the millions of women throughout India struggling to improve their lives? What sets her apart from the rest of them? Does anyone really care?

Dear Pen, you’ve crossed out my words again! Are my words really so unworthy of the world? I stare at the yellow page before me. The words hiding behind those bolder pen strokes seem to form the more interesting portrait. Self doubts about my writing are so graphically evident as I hold this work up to the light.

Dear Pen, what is it you want of me? I am trying to meet a deadline! I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and wait for an answer.

Aha!! Maybe, Pen, you are working in tandem with Dear Muse. Were the two of you cavorting in the margins watching me struggle to write from the heart?  Did you want me all along to focus on what’s hidden—those words between the lines—of this nascent work of art? Those words, they are the thoughts and feelings I keep hidden from the world, right? Okay. Okay, I get it. Not just the facts, but the feelings!

I’m once again ready to begin, with pen in hand and yellow canvas on my lap. Having survived that first attempt at blood letting, this time should be easier. I know because I chose the blood red pen instead.

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Untitled
By Mary Hill
Inspiration Piece provided to Barbara Bever

End of Winter Walk
By Barbara Bever
Response to Mary Hill’s painting (above)

The middle-aged man slips on his polar fleece and pulls a knit cap over his head. He reaches for the dog’s leash draped over the doorknob. “Settle down, settle down, boy! We’re going, we’re going.” He clips on the leash as the dog prances in anticipation. Just after getting out the door, the man remembers his cell phone. “Sit. Stay. And I mean stay!” The dog waits anxiously; one ear is cocked backward to catch the man’s imminent foot steps, the other strains forward listening eagerly to the high-pitched yaps of the collie down the street. Returning, the man tucks the phone in his side pocket and picks up the leash resting on the blacktop driveway.

The man and the dog head down the sidewalk in the direction of the woods. Winter’s chill still hangs in the air, though a few crocuses impatient to bask in the sun have bared their bright faces. The man folds up the collar of his jacket, tucking his chin to his chest to keep out the cold. He has a lot to do today. He ticks off the list as he walks: Pick up paint. Rake up those leaves. The car needs an oil change. He’s unaware of the vestiges of winter: a rumpled plastic bag that whips up onto the sidewalk, a beer can clinking against the curb as a gust of wind catches its emptiness. The man’s cell phone rings. It’s the call he was expecting.

The dog is also middle-aged, though he hasn’t lived as many winters as the man. The dog breathes in deeply to catch the freshness of the day, first stretching his black nose high in the air to smell bacon sizzling somewhere nearby then snuffling low to the ground like a bloodhound as he strains against the leash. He sniffs at some long, slender fingers of daffodils impatient to trumpet their brash arrival. Every few yards the dog stops to read the pungent pee-mails left by fellow pets. He lifts his leg and leaves his own scent on a plastic bag blown onto the sidewalk. “Come on. Come on.” says the man. The dog feels a quick pinch around the neck as the man checks the leash. The dog heels.

The dog hears the clicking of his nails on the cement and the jingle-jangling of the tags on his collar. A can rattles along the curb beckoning him to come chase it. He eyes a couple of scrawny squirrels scampering across a weather-beaten yard looking for nuts they buried last fall. He lifts his head to watch a pair of sparrows flit from branch to ground seeking bits of dried grass and perhaps a stray piece of string to carry back to their nests. As they come to the corner, the dog sits and waits. He hears the humming of tires passing, the beeping of a truck backing up, and the low rumble of a plane overhead. He watches for the man to step out with his right leg. Then they cross the street.

The ground beneath the dog’s paws changes to soft earth as the companions enter the woods. The dog likes the spongy texture after weeks of walking on frozen ground. The man leans down and releases the dog from his leash. This is what the dog loves most—running freely through the woods. He races ahead of the man and then, with hind quarters close to the ground, wheels around and tears back so fast that he passes the man walking and talking on his phone.

The dog darts from tree to twig, twig to trail, sniffing and snorting. When he hears a rustle in the leaves, he abruptly stops, lifting his right paw. His tail is curled, his ears erect, eyes intent. The dog’s flanks begin to tremble with excitement. A lone squirrel makes a beeline for the nearest tree. The dog is off at top speed crashing through the undergrowth. He scares a dole of doves out of hiding; their wings madly drum the air as they fly into the branches. A crow caws a word of warning.

The dog hears the hollow thudding of the man’s boots on the wooden bridge and gives up the chase, now intent on the creek. He hurls himself off the creek’s low bank, taking a swan dive into the icy water. He bounds out of the water sucking in the rich smells emanating from the decaying piles of leaves at the creek’s edge. At the top of the bank, the dog stretches out his neck and shakes wildly from nose to tail. Droplets like diamonds spray high into the air.

The dog spies the man ahead and takes off once more, navigating around rocks, jumping over fallen limbs, and weaving through tall trees. Suddenly he feels a spark of pain in his back left paw and gives a shrill yip. He jerks up the leg and hobbles on his other three for a few steps. He gingerly tests the foot again. More pain. The man is getting too far ahead. The dog tucks up his leg again, hops unevenly down the trail to the man’s side. The man is still on the phone. The dog whimpers softly; the man looks down. “Just a second,” he hears the man say into the phone. “What’s a matter there, boy?” The man kneels beside the dog and sees a holly leaf stuck into the back paw. With a swift tug he pulls out the sharp corner and tosses the leaf into the woods. “Let’s head home,” he says and clips the leash back onto the dog’s collar. The man gives the dog a quick pat to the head and goes back to his call.

The middle-aged man and the middle-aged dog take a short-cut out of the woods and back into the neighborhood. The man finally moves the phone away from his ear, flips it closed, and slips it back into his pocket. He fingers about for his house key as they approach their driveway. “Hope you did your business back there, fella.” He ruffles the fur behind the dog’s ears. “Was that a good walk?” The dog nudges his cold nose under the man’s hand in thanks and thinks, “Every walk is good!”